PopeWatch: Holy Spirit

Dale Price at Dyspeptic Mutterings notes how hollow the invocation of the Holy Spirit can be in reference to the acts, or rather the purported acts, of Vatican II;

As I said at the beginning, it is part of a recurring series, so work your way back through her blog posts on the topic–starting with this one. 

Her (Amy Welborn) thinking through of the issues should be compared to the most recent corporate bishop-speak on Why We Must Flush All Of That. For example, take the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago, Blase Cupich. In a blog post at Pray Tell, he explains why we all must move on, get with the Vatican II paradigm shift, embrace the break with the past and obey his pope-given pastoral authority.

Which will sound more like “authoritah” when he tosses the Latin Mass-goers out on their arses in a few months. 

He’ll probably let that type have Christmas. Probably.

But this is the same guy who literally locked the FSSP out of their parish during Holy Week in 2002, so…don’t bet more than your couch cushion change on it.

In return, he “may” (his word) let you have some of that equally-outdated chant crap, bits of dead language or even an additional minute or so of silence. This last most likely carefully dispersed throughout the service so as not to offend the Chief Liturgist of Chicago. If you’re not bustling about like Martha, you’re doing it wrong.

Of course, any parishes that do so with the Latin, etc., will be watched with the hairiest sets of eyeballs in the Windy City when they so do.

The Archbishop being who he is, he can’t help but say something fatuous even as he drops heavy-handed “pastoral” thunderstorm warnings.

A second guiding principle the pope addresses in TC is that there has to be a solid unequivocal recognition on the part of all Catholics that the Second Vatican Council and its reforms are not only an authentic action of the Holy Spirit but also are in continuity with the Tradition of the Church.

Emphasis in original.

How about “no”? And “wrong”?

Throughout history, the Holy Ghost has only guaranteed that the collected batches of mitred men and their clerical advisers gathered at ecumenical councils–who have run the gamut from capital-s Saints to perverts and heretics–will not irretrievably screw things up.

More to the point, the Holy Ghost certainly does not guarantee that, post-council, a much smaller group of men appointed by the pope, also running from saintly to godawful, will correctly synthesize what that larger group may or may not have wanted.

What He did guarantee was that what Catholics receive from their altar (or whatever else it might be called these days) continues to be the Eucharistic Christ.

Because, really–it takes about five minutes of research to discover that what the Smaller Group of Guys produced wasn’t really what was expected. For example, all vernacular, all the time! wasn’t the idea, according to one of the liturgical periti writing as the Council was in session:

It is noteworthy that this question was the most discussed in all the debate on the liturgy. Eighty-one speakers were heard. Their opinions take up more than 100 solid pages. Three tendencies were manifested: 

Some wanted no concessions to the vernacular; some wanted permission to say everything in the vernacular for all who want it; some wanted to maintain the basic principle of Latin, but also to open the door noticeably to the vernacular tongue. The majority were of this middle view, which was that followed by the schema. 

Thus the way of prudence and of apostolic boldness were amicably united. The Second Vatican Council, officially introducing bilingualism into the life of the Latin liturgy, takes a memorable stride in history.

So much for “what the Council wanted,” as monolingualism became the norm in 1970. Sounds like the authentic voice of the Holy Spirit was gagged, not heard.

But, of course, noting that the Emperor’s floppy bits keep popping out makes one borderline schismatic and definitely out of tune with the new thing.

Naturally, then, I will push one more button. The Cardinal points to the new calendar, with “Hey, new saints!”

I will respond by pointing to the commentary of Fr. Louis Bouyer, the most eminent liturgist on the Concilium that promulgated the spirit-protected, in-continuity-with-Tradition-honest new liturgical calendar:

I prefer to say nothing, or so little of the new calendar, the handiwork of a trio of maniacs who suppressed, with no good reason, Septuagesima and the Octave of Pentecost and who scattered three quarters of the Saints higgledy-piddledy, all based on notions of their own!

Because these three hotheads obstinately refused to change anything to their work and because the Pope wanted to finish up quickly to avoid letting the chaos out of hand, their project, however insane, was accepted!

“In continuity with the Tradition of the Church,” huh?

Yo tengo muchas preguntas, arzobispo.

In the final analysis, it does not matter if the Cardinal is aware of the problems with his argument (such as it is).

The facts are easily discoverable, and the desire for something more rooted will not go away. No matter how much he and those of like mind try to resolve the issue with a toxic mix of brute exercises of authority and patronizing rhetoric. Ordering people to move on is like ordering them to shut up–it does not work, long term.

When you throw in the reality that your institutional credibility hovers around that of telephone scam artists from Hyderabad, it guarantees that only bad things will happen.

Go here to read the rest.